I think kb is on the right track as far as collecting all the metrics on the site. But to spin it a different way, what if there was an actual real world cost given to the uses of the site. Say you take the cost of bandwidth and then you divide that by how much each individual user is drawing from the site. Then you take the cost of storage and you divide that by how much each individual adds to that storage by adding content, comments, etc. It would be interesting to see a little ticker on my feed somewhere that tells me, as close and specific as possible, how much I as one user costs the owner to keep the doors open. This info would only be visible to each person. No one could see other users usage and dollar draw. As a user that has been here for a while, I would love to know how much I am costing Hubski, and would definitely be more likely to give money - and likely even more than I cost. You could take this as far as you wanted. Say you took all the time that was spent to code the back end, upgrade hardware and what not, well that could be a line item too. The more users on the site, the more these costs are divided. The more active someone is, the more they cost. Payment would not have to be required, it would just be a "hey, fyi, your 50 posts today cost us $.00065 in storage. Another idea is to have an actual page that you could go to with advertising on it. It wouldn't be on any other screen but one. It could look like "feed - chatter - global - tags - community - badges - accounting" or something. I click on accounting and it's just a stream of video ads or something. Also on that screen, there is another ticker that tells me how much the site is earning by me watching these ads. Say I wanted to earn Hubski 50 cents one day because I saw that that was how much my draw was that day for using the site, I could watch ten ads, or refresh my screen and get more ads or whatever. Mind you, I have no idea how ads work or give money. Edit: My first point reminds me of the new Aphex Twin album cover, where he breaks down where all the costs of his album went to. I know for example that .00041 quid went to tracking and monitoring illegal download links and that .00113 quid went to advertising in Spain: 
Is this viable? Surely someone would've done it. I'll happily idle on an advertising page every once in a while, or refresh it while I do other stuff.Another idea is to have an actual page that you could go to with advertising on it. It wouldn't be on any other screen but one. It could look like "feed - chatter - global - tags - community - badges - accounting" or something. I click on accounting and it's just a stream of video ads or something. Also on that screen, there is another ticker that tells me how much the site is earning by me watching these ads. Say I wanted to earn Hubski 50 cents one day because I saw that that was how much my draw was that day for using the site, I could watch ten ads, or refresh my screen and get more ads or whatever. Mind you, I have no idea how ads work or give money.
So there are a bunch of different types of advertisements but, at the most basic level, you have impressions and clicks. Cost/impression is how much and advertiser pays every time someone lands on a page where their ad is loaded. Cost/click is how much and advertiser pays every time you click. These days, a lot of ads are pay per click (PPC). So, even if there were a bunch of ads, no one is going to pay you much for the impressions and even if we had a separate page, users would not only need to sit idle on the page, but actively click ads. And, seeing as the page is separate, I'm not sure if the advertisers would pay the standard rate for PPC. I'm not sure. I know there are ad networks and stuff and we may be able to get away from it for a bit. But it feels kinda shady? I don't know if that's the right word, seeing as we're talking about shitty online advertisers. So...that's about as much input I can give on the viability of this idea. I do like the idea though and I do like the thought process happening in this thread. Please, don't take my response as discouragement for throwing out ideas or anything.
So, wait, the bloggers etc who throw up little "please disable adblock so you can see my ads and keep my site running" -- they're talking solely about impressions, I assume, because no one who disables adblock is actually going to click the ads. Do they actually fund their site that way? Because if it's powerful enough to pay some of their server costs (even without clicks!) it could probably handle some of ours ... every little bit helps and it doesn't cost the users anything. Lemme know if I'm off.
See links below for the latest and greatest ad networks that explain the different styles and pay rates for ads. CPM = cost per THOUSAND impressions. So a $0.50 CPM would be 50 cents for 1000 impressions. Based on Hubski's pageviews yesterday, we would make a few bucks (literally) if we had those on every page you all viewed. $0.50 is really high though. Usually it's much, much less. The way I've said it up there isn't technically correct though. It's usually said, "the advertiser pays a $10 CPM to run 100,000 ads (a $1,000 total expense)." But then you have to look at what the RPM (revenue) actually is. Since you are using an ad network, the cost may be $1000 but you, as the "publisher" or whatever, only sees $500 because the network takes the other $500. [1] http://www.monetizemore.com/blog/10-best-ad-networks-2014/
Online advertisements are a crazy underworld. Based on the numbers I see randomly because of work or whatever, I don't understand how anyone makes any decent money of ads.
Advertising might be a good bet. There are many ad networks out there you can integrate with, and make some decent eCPMs depending on your traffic volumes.
Don't know really. That page might have to have some type of actual content on it which would turn it into a fun, almost subversive challenge I think. The whole idea though is that it would be something you choose to expose yourself too.